The present invention relates to continuous casting in the horizontal and more particularly the invention relates to a start-up head for use in cooperation with a mold for continuous casting whereby the start-up head is provided with a coupling and connecting member which will form a positive hooklike connection in contour matching relationship with the beginning portion of the casting itself. The coupling member, however, has to be uncoupled from the casting through tilting whereby the member is provided with a curved undercut on the side facing the casting with a corresponding curvature on the opposite side.
Starting a machine for continuous casting usually needs a particular start-up head which is, so to speak, in the front part of the casting. The casting start-up head has a cross section which corresponds to the cross section of the mold. Hence, prior to casting the mold is in effect closed by this head. As the mold is filled with liquid metal such as molten steel, the material flows around the coupling member of the start-up head and will provide, on solidification, a form and contour matching connection between the start-up head on one hand as a whole and the casting as a whole on the other hand. In order to reuse the start-up head its coupling member is to be configured that it can in fact be separated from the beginning portion of the casting e.g. for tilting.
German pat. No. 19 21 312 discloses and describes a start-up head for vertical continuous casting wherein the coupling member has a convex hooklike configuration. The transition from coupling member to that part of the start-up head which provides closing and sealing of the mold prior to casting is configured so that its undercut portion is only of very minimal dimensions. Actually that particular part could be termed arc-shaped so that there is a danger that the head separates from the front end of the casting, even on minimal tilting.
Closer to the state of the art which forms the point of departure of the present invention but still referring to vertical casting is the European pat. No. 70 493. The head disclosed in this patent has a hooklike coupling member which on extracting the casting from the mold makes sure that undesired de-coupling in the secondary cooling zone will be avoided. Here it has to be considered that the guiding equipment in the secondary cooling zone is sparsely distributed or not present at all. This patent does disclose a safe and automatic decoupling of the start-up head from the casting at a desired location where downstream decoupling is in effect desired. This known head however is suitable only for the usual curved casting equipment because forces are transmitted on the casting only in the direction of extraction so that there must be retained a strictly colinear relationship.